AIM-260 JATM

I've just had a press release come in that I might like to just spend a couple of seconds talking about if I can.

Hot off the press is a story from the United States that Lockheed Martin has signed an agreement with the U.S. Department of War to accelerate the production and delivery of the next tactical missile, the AIM-260 Joint Advanced Tactical Missile.

This is important for Australia because we've invested $736 million in into this program.

And we are the first, as I understand, the first export customer for this weapon.

But yes, they will be slated for primarily the F-35.

Well, thanks, Nigel.

That is good to hear that there's been some progress and we look forward to hearing more about the AIM-260.

Kira, I believe you had an update based on our previous news review episode.

Here's what the public record tells us.

The AIM-260 JATM is a beyond visual range air-to-air missile developed by Lockheed Martin.

It was built to replace the AMRAAM, and it was designed specifically to outrange the threats that the AMRAAM simply cannot reach.

To understand why the JATM exists, you have to understand how good the AMRAAM was, and then why good wasn't enough anymore.

Oh, thank you.

Lockheed Martin and the Defense Department have struck a broad framework agreement, uh, eventually resulting in a multi-year production contract for the Joint Advanced Tactical Missile, JATM, I guess-

Yeah

... uh, which is still in development but close to entering production.

We...

We knew that the Pentagon was working already on a long-range missile, the AIM-260, that Lockheed one.

So I'm just kind of curious, how should we think about them? How do they compare? Or maybe Steve wants to weigh in here as well.

range um from my expectations my understanding is much longer on the aim 424 malice uh the jadam has been in the works for quite a while um i understand they're working on delivery schedules now after after it being in flight test i would compare this um announcement similar to the aim 174b the gunslinger that was announced a couple years ago also by rtx looking to really extend the range from which fourth and fifth and now eventually sixth gen aircraft can protect the carrier and project power.

So it's a giant missile and still being able to be internally carried is really remarkable.

Steve, what do you make of it? And especially with the 174 as well in the picture.

yeah so i mean i think it's important to you know as brian points out uh to understand is the third new air to air intercept missile revealed uh over the past 10 years and um they each keep getting longer in range and that's not necessarily surprising because uh these are really responses to what uh adversaries potential adversaries have been doing When the PL-15 came out from China boasting greater range than the AIM-120D, we responded with AIM-260.

Most of that in the classified domain, which we weren't aware of until 2019.